Snapshots in the Life of a Time Traveller
by thecolouryes
Summary: A collection of one-shots looking at the life and times of a certain Annalily Harpwell, and her occasional misadventures with the infamous Captain Jack Harkness.
1. Tell Him You Love Him

**Snapshots in the Life of a Time Traveller**

**A Torchwood General/Romance Fanfic**

**Summary:  
**_**A collection of one-shots looking at the life and times of a certain Annalily Harpwell, and her occasional misadventures with the infamous Captain Jack Harkness.**_

**Rated K+ for angst and the quite good possibility we'll get into mature stuff.**

**Disclaimer: What you recognise from the TV show is obviously not mine. Anna is. Don't know what – or who – else I lay claim to yet.**

**A/N: ****For anyone who hasn't met Anna: she's introduced in my story "****Manipulated Timeline" (.net/s/5335766/1/Manipulated_Timeline).**

**Yet another saddening reaction to CoE. Mild spoilers for it. This is actually written as a lead-up to my fic "A Thousand Years' Time".**

**The name for the 456 is courtesy of YouGottaSingAlong, who also beta-read this for me.**

**One last warning: expect the story to have the UK spellings of words.**

**Chapter One: Tell Him You Love Him (505 words)**

"What's the matter, Jack?" He looked at Anna. Now forty, she had aged well, and was finally used to dealing with the confusing, overlapping timelines that were hers and Jack's. Usually, this was a good thing – her outbursts about the future were unsettling, if nothing else – but there were times when the fact that she was more world-weary than he was unnerved him.

Times like now, when she turned from lover to mother. He sighed. "I've been thinking." Anna faked an exasperated sigh.

"How many times have I told you not to do that, Jack? You'll give yourself a headache!" He smiled, but it felt forced, and Anna could see it didn't touch his eye. "About what?" she asked, much more gently.

"Ianto," he answered simply. Hurt billowed off him in the look he gave her. She had experience dealing with his guilt, but nothing like this. Only once in her life had she seen him hurting this badly, and she hadn't exactly had the chance to try to calm him down then. He'd shoed her away – screamed at her to leave.

This time, even if he screamed and yelled and threw a hissy fit, nothing was drawing her away from him. She got up from her chair and folded herself into his lap. He seemed to like the physical contact, but Anna could see his mind was elsewhere as he absent-mindedly stroked her hair. "Tell me what you're thinking," she prompted softly, more of a suggestion than a command.

"A thousand years ago, the Nagrae came to Earth for the second time." Anna nodded mutely; she'd particularly liked this sort of history in school, so she knew it well. Travelling with Jack made it all seem that much more real. "It was hell. Government conspiracies; secret organisations blowing up other secret organisations. And there were only three of us, Gwen, Ianto, and I. We had some help, a girl by the name of Lois. Lois Habiba. I wonder what ever happened to her..." He trailed off before he'd really told her anything, but she didn't press him. When he was ready, he'd tell her.

"He never should have come to Thames House with me. It was stupid. He should have stayed back at the warehouse with Gwen."

"And done what, Jack? I don't blame you for doing what you did. It was a proper division of labour. How could you have known what was going to happen?" She sighed. "He didn't blame you, did he?"

"No." Jack's answer was of a pitch that she felt rather than heard.

"Go to him," she urged.

"Hmm?"

"Go to him, Jack. Tell him you're sorry."

"You won't mind?"

"I want you better. If it takes visiting an old grave, that's fine with me." They got up off the couch.

"I'll be back soon. I promise." With a smile, she shook her head.

"Don't be. Take as long as you need." He flashed her a half-hearted grin. "Oh, and Jack?"

"Yes?"

"Tell him you love him."


	2. When Everything Changes

**Snapshots in the Life of a Time Traveller**

**Disclaimer: What you recognise from the TV show is obviously not mine. Anna is. Don't know what – or who – else I lay claim to yet.**

**A/N: I couldn't resist the pun. This is also one of the main reasons why I tossed this in the Torchwood category, so the people who read it will get the joke in the title.**

**Chapter Two: When Everything Changes (494 words)**

Jack knew right away something wasn't right. Anna acted much more lethargic than he expected her to at this age, and her normal daring had all but disappeared. God, she still looked and acted like a teenage when she was this young, which six simple bracelets proved to be only twenty-five. It was back at the flat that he was temporarily calling home, after a failed attempt to draw her out of the foetal position on the bed with a promise of fresh strawberries, that he finally confronted her about it.

He sat down in the space between her head and thighs, directly in her line of sigh. She blinked herself out of space, then twisted her head to look up at his. "What's wrong, Anna?" She sighed, and he was surprised to see the last of the sun's rays glinting on the tracks silent tears had made down her cheeks.

"Three months ago," she started, her voice hitching a little. "Three months ago, my time, we got into this argument. And I – I ran," she admitted, tears falling freely now. "It was bloody stupid of me, but I did."

"Oh, Anna, I forgive you," Jack murmured, stroking her hair comfortingly.

"Of course you do," she answered with a perverse smile. "We haven't even had the bloody argument yet." She sighed, but didn't go on.

"Is that it?"

"No," she whispered, the tears running harder now. "I ran, and I ran to this bar, and I met this guy, and – Jack, I'm pregnant." The last three words she said in a rush before completely dissolving into tears. Jack turned and gathered her in his arms. As he rocked her gently to calm her down a bit, his mind calculated millions of possibilities. When she was no longer crying, he stopped planning Anna's future – and her child's – without her.

He kissed her forehead. Her eyes, which had drifted shut, sprung open. She gave him a half-hearted smile. "What do you want to do with it?" he asked.

"It?" She looked confused. "Oh, her."

"Her? You know it's a girl?" Anna gave a little smile and a slight nod.

"That was the second thing I found out. Oh no, I'm going to have to name her!" She sighed yet again. "I'm no good at choosing names.

"You're keeping it – her, then?" She nodded vigorously.

"Wouldn't dream of anything else. It's just..."

"Just what?"

"This life – my life, anyway – isn't the sort of life that's meant for children." Jack nodded, knowing this better than Anna suspected.

"We have all of time and space at our disposal. She can grow up _anywhere_." Anna thought about this.

"The twenty-first century."

"Hmm?"

"I want her to grow up in the twenty-first century," she explained, thinking of how she'd always wished she could experience the history in the making. "When everything changes."

"Right," Jack said, thinking of all that the twenty-first century had been. "When everything changes."


End file.
